Posts by Cyfaill

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Re: Why anonymous in concept for democracy is important

@Charles 9

Nothing is black and white, you know that.

Absolutism is almost never descriptive of society in the big picture.

We need the intelligence community because there have always been conflicts of national interest as long as there were nations. However, it seems a proclivity within some cultures to allow a type of... auto-scaling of government... given the funds to grow, to develop capabilities, to make a technology better at a given task is a natural outcome. People are not stupid... Many will see it coming and put up resistance, when it is their own government, watching them. The fact that many will welcome their own surveillance in the false hope of increased security, don't see the problem... or somehow make it seem to themselves that it is not a massive loss in self determination.... I realize that there are differences in how the United States citizens and the citizens of the UK perceive this. 1984 as a story took place in the UK, did it not. I live in Oregon, USA... However I have lived in about a dozen different states across America. Many but not all Americans feel as though their government is encroaching on the fundamental driver of their concept of what democracy was supposed to be.

The statement about highly educated populations was not specifically directed towards any population... other than American... However it is true. It comes from President Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower from a little known article in a US Air Force monthly magazine of around 1956-ish... He was explaining why an interest free education loan program was a necessity in America. I did not pull that out of thin air.... its a fact though. Think about it. Is it not true that the higher the general level of education a population is, the better the government... the less inclined towards singularity of popular goals of the culture... Hence more creative... And what happens to a population that asks no questions... or is dissuaded from asking any.

In the end the politicians begin to reflect the average level of the level of education... And then making wise choices falls equally.

Its not difficult to do the math on this.... I am not making a slam on the readers but I am asking for people to give some consideration to the idea that a surveillance society is a fundamental mistake in any democracy... mine and yours... It is not the same as no police... nor is it the same as no intelligence organizations... but any organism (culture) that no longer trusts itself ( or its own people ) to the level we are approaching really is in trouble.

Why anonymous in concept for democracy is important

In the time of Benjamin Franklin... he wrote many published articles anonymously... in promoting a new or dangerous idea ( like democracy itself ) the idea is to survive long enough to see the concept put out into the world. In his time it was good enough to just change the name of who wrote something, print it and get it done.

Nobody today in this digital world is free, even in thought, if every idea is without security from the very day it is typed into a computer.

Do you feel violated, perhaps even fearful of being watched 24/7/365.

Does it make you feel un-free.

That is how "they" win... in quotes because there is no "they", it is our society that lost the idea of a free spirit of free thought. Of a democracy of words were an idea that challenges the status of things as they are, without reprisals from the state, can be said anonymously enough that they are spoken at all.

I suspect it is already too late... too late to affect the world for the better and live to tell enough people to make a difference.

Those who would sacrifice essential liberty for a little security deserve neither liberty or security.... and that is what the world got.

Enjoy these few years left to you because it is closing down fast now.

Who to blame... nobody but ourselves for not seeing it in time to stop.

Only a highly educated and aware population can control and manage a technological democracy... as the education falls, so fall those who do not have the were-with-all to manage the technology that they live with.

The technology that controls their lives, controls them.

Don't like that? Don't feel like your free to think a new idea or to say what you feel.... That is what loss of freedom is. It happens when you feel watched and viewed all of the time. It is the hallmark of what defines a police state and that is what defines loss of freedom.

It is the fear to believe you are free, that is what it feels like when you are not. The NSA and those like it destroyed the democracy they were trying to protect. Because they lacked the wisdom to see that just because you can does not mean that you should.

Debian is king of Software

In the sense that is is such a good foundation... Or if one is so inclined as a distro all by itself.

I am going on 15 years of using it... started with red hat 4.1 Linux leaving MS Windows for good, And I will thank Intel for the heads up on the viability of Linux... At Intel CV lab 6 Jones Farm Campus, Intel Oregon

Hillsboro, OR... Linux was the future. Yes it was a task to install once long ago... Those days are gone forever now... Linux pretty much installs itself, if you give it a chance... Debian rocks

Then tried SUSE Linux for a little while and then straight up Debian.

now... I use aptosid - a Debian, SID distro variant and it does everything I want... well this says it all:

Microsoft needs the cloud

Its future depends on your paying through the teeth for a service they will charge more for, to own your documents by possessing them. And thus controlling your future with, by just denying your access if you don't play ball.

"They" can have my hard drive...

Dream in the Clouds... And the wind will decide what shape the dreams will be. Trusting your works to corrupted intent... never.

Trust is a hard thing to re-establish once the reason for the trust is lost.

I for one would trust in the reasonable concepts of Benjamin Franklin and not in the new redefinitions of words like liberty and freedom as espoused in the new-think of the world today. Before the Constitution of the US or the Deceleration of Independence can have any meaning...

...It is the Bill of Rights... intractable and adamantine, must be the center, of all.

It is the core of Freedom and Liberty... it is not something that can be negotiated away by any "government" Believe that to your core and you will know what to do. Swearing allegiance to a flag (a piece of cloth) is silly and meaningless, it states nothing. Swearing allegiance to the actual words and understood meaning of a document that is the real center of it all... That is what the founding fathers knew

Understanding that would redefine with precision that actual intent is something tangible. Something like; I swear allegiance to the Bill of Rights and what it stands for... that says something real. That concept is something the US never exported.

And believed in it... I think it would have made a different better world.

As real knowledge goes out the window as it now has for the majority of all peoples, this world presently reflects, in the nature of collective understanding, what that loss is. Just look at the fear.

I think the American population wanted to believe. Trust at large goes first.

Believe in the "Bill of Rights" and you will know what to do.

The individual rights of a free people collectively enforced by all.

Respect is given, not demanded, by a government of a free peoples.

Respect of the Freedom of Liberty’s of the peoples of a government controlled by the peoples is the law of the universe in this reality.

A correct position

I met Mr. Shuttleworth once at a Linux conference, a most imposing person he is. He challenges the audience with his every move. It is what one expects in a good racecar driver, a good aggressive entrepreneur is required to be like this if he is going to succeed.

I do not use Ubuntu directly because I use aptosid and I like the control I have with it... but I do understand what he is hoping to achieve with the distribution and the correctness of his comments.

If one thing about Microsoft is to be understood it is that they were aggressive in the marketing of their product and the dictatorial aspects of the heads of that company had much to do with the market dominance they once lorded over.

Linux is a superior Kernel and operating system on technical grounds and given an equally challenging leadership a company can win with it.

Linus is a great manager, like a great general... and leans in a somewhat different direction than Mark... That being said both of these Management Gurus are the type of people needed to lead with Linux.

Linux may not displace Windows on the desktop because there are too many Distros. However that is why it will succeed in the plethora of new devices in general... that is the future. However if you stick with a given Distro of your choice and learn it well... Linux of your choice makes a great desktop system and can utterly make Windows pale into the sunset technically, as it deserves. This is an evolutionary process at work here.

Survival of the fittest. Many technically better products fail because its leaders and proponents are not up to it... Linux is blessed with aggressive leadership, that is what it takes to win, it is already technically better.

KDE is configurable for a reason

KDE is just that as well. I have used it for many years. I have tried the others, I like KDE. I expect it to be heavy so I just build a more powerful computer to compensate.

Why would I want to do that? Because I use the computer as a major tool in my life and I like a comfortable place to work. It is a task to learn any GUI, so what. My best advice to anyone learning Linux is to pick a good distro and learn to use it. No shortage of selections. I use aptosid, with a KDE that is pumped up and many applications that demand power in core and HDD space... and speed to make it seem seamless, which it does very well.

There is no reason to pick on someone else's choice, I gave up that useless activity long ago... just pick your tools and learn them well.

KDE gives a plethora of choices so it can be fine tuned to be what you want it to be.

Choice and simplicity are not compatible goals... the greater the choices and configurable elements means complexity is inherent in the design... I just like a pretty desktop and with KDE that is certainly possible. If I also want speed and performance I need to up the capabilities of the entire system. So I do...

Its not a problem with me that someone else has a different goal... Its all Linux after all is said and done... that’s the power... it all works.

One other small point, 89% of kernel development comes from corporate sponsored development now... Linux is no longer a hobby, it is running the world beyond the desktop even as we talk about it as if it was some new thing coming up... Open your Eyes. Its doing the heavy lifting now. It may never be the future of the desktop as that space will belong to Android Mobile Linux in just a few years... That is your simple Linux, all configuration done for you.... Workstations Linux, Appliances Android.

LibreOffice 4 was just released.

software capabilities can be total FUBAR

long ago, I worked in a processor design and configuration test lab inside of Intel.

I can not be specific as to were or how due to the requirements of the job.

However, low level code writers at Intel would indeed need to and did write code at the firmware/hardware level... designed and written, to be delivered on a floppy to a specific machine because this stuff was very brick-ly capable by design. Its purpose was to brick *forever* certain north bridge or south bridge chips under test or even the CPU itself if necessary. no details will be given. The reasons are obvious, they rightfully did not want buggy designs to be available at any cost into the world at large... think of it as releasing a plague...

But I assure you that with just a few commands or even just booting a floppy (at that time that was a common booting device, kind of obsolete now) with the code would utterly and forever bring down a given mobo and or rewrite firmware on a chip... any chip can be done in so to speak...

firmware is not forever-ware... flag errata is real. a CPU can be designed to fix certain known bugs in a given OS such as windows as an obvious example... why do you think the term win-tel came to be... at one time long ago Intel processors had a real advantage with Windows, due to Flag Errata capabilities in the CPU fixed some "difficulties" Windows had with other company’s CPU design’s -- long ago in the mid 1990s... Of course now with the rise of Linux, even in the 1990s, it was a favorite of many Intel engineers for also obvious reasons. All CPUs of x86 designs from all of the survivor company’s can run Linux code very well. AMD64 is a very good choice as is Intel CPUs, I do believe that Samsung will smell the coffee and see that bucking Linux is not such a good idea... Not long term... it is the future for a foreseeable time, Windows as it is a MS proprietary is at the disadvantage, long term... as it becomes more irrelevant in the marketplace its failures will be of an increasing scale due to the general industry’s need to move on.

The real reason to use LibreOffice and not MS 20xxxx

It may seem like a small point... until you need your documents to work... a hundred years from now.

It is why the ISO was originally involved to set the real world standard, that both OpenOffice and the forked necessity of LibreOffice came to be.

It why MS will always be second rate at document integrity. Its the longevity of the world standard to be open is the reason.

Ultimately and if you read the EULA it is Microsoft that owns the format and hence the documents themselves... and not you, the creator of a MS word .doc. or .docx (poison) With LibreOffice you own it.

I own a company and all of our documents use the ISO world standard .ODF and or .ODT using libreOffice as the creation tool. I will be able to open them or any one of about 18 other formats of documents with LibreOffice. MS can make no such claim.

Many of our documents that need to be e-mailed are in .pdf created with LibreOffice.

They read anywhere on any platform as they look when created with our Linux computers. Don't be fooled by Microsoft... you do not need them for anything, they need you. They bought votes and lied and tricked the ISO to get any standard with their name on it and the ISO made fools of themselves being gullible enough to capitulate to a second rate dual standard that was not needed.

lets get real

For those with savvy - a powerful Desktop Workstation with some form of Linux to do real work. build it yourself types. I chose aptosid Linux with 40,855 plus applications and programs to select from to make it all happen. And it *is* a power house system with an eight core AMD CPU and all 64bit end to end, 16 Gigs of low latency RAM, liquid cooled. Its a rolling release so up-times are variable but I chose when to upgrade and it is always up to date. Secure, powerful and fast is the name of the game.

For those on the go, either an oldish laptop with Win XP still running ( poor old thing can't get a rest ) or again some type of conversion to some Linux put on it... try Linux Mint, kind of turnkey, Yes it runs great if you have a worthy laptop. not as many choices as aptosid but then again it just works without a lot of knowledge from the user.

Reason... Android is distributed technologies over many supplying vendors.

Apple is just one, soon to be politically incorrect system.

Or an old Apple Notebook or Laptop or Workstation... if it works why not.

Notebooks can be resurrected with a Linux install. I have done many experiments just for fun... All with Linux installs and trials with live DVD tests... Open your eyes... Its a big world out there.... Chrome, Android, pure Linux... New super laptop... Figure it out because time waits for nobody.

Win 8 fails to impress - Microsoft is soft in the head and its age shows poorly.

I go into a store to look at the new systems and the sales people plead with me to do this and that to make it palatable and I ask why should it have to do this and that with a new system... does it suck or something... laughing as I walk out...

Company’s are not all that stupid unless they are Nokia running with their master - and real owner, Microsoft.

A new age is coming but it will not look like the current forced sales of systems that don't get the job done. Kind of looks like a modern Linux or even Unix like systems are the ones that survived... Windows will hang around for a time... but can you smell its old age yet. Like a relic of some distant past, I think it really is on life support.

The Kernel of Linux

The kernel of Linux is becoming the main source of functionality for a good portion of the worlds goodies now: Any Complex Machine.

It has to get it right.

Form follows function, performance issues are not tolerated.

What part of this do you not understand.

When you look at it this way and understand that it is about what is critical to the functionality of the majority of products of the world now... then it should be easy to understand its importance.

Do you want your jet engine to reboot or even your cars engine management to get the fuel mix wrong or your android to hang... or your mission critical radar to go fritz. You know your screwed when the little blue light goes out.

That is what the big issue is with Linus. Its important not for $, but life in the future.

You are right, everyone... the Linux Kernel is not a toy anymore... never really was.

Freedom means a fight for it

Worse yet... that the idea of getting away with something they should understand as evil, would be something to try.

RMS is correct. The idea of Linux is that Freedom means Freedom.

Yea- yea, I understand the modern world demands capitulation and compromise.

Well, stuff it.

Freedom means the will to fight the evil that is driving the world into ruin.

Your computer should be an extension of your mind. An expression of that will is to be free in thought and action. I have met Mark Shuttleworth, do you think he would tolerate the loss of freedom to act on his own, needing to look over his shoulder at who is watching? Why should you. The opt out option to satisfy those who do not mind the observation and records of interests... should be an auto off and an informed decision to switch on, at a minimum. that is my idea of compromise, such as it is... not the lack of information within the minds of their customers that Canonical seems to be depending on to get extra money. That's like a sucker punch... money they get, means you must loose your Freedom... What is it that, that seems complicated to understand. Get a spine and take a stand. That is what is wrong with the modern world.

They can have my hard drive, when they pull it from my cold dead fingers.

KDE is good

When KDE 4 became available I held back about 2 days to see if it would be safe. Then I used it for a week... dropped back to KDE 3.5.10 for a few more months then tried again.

KDE 4 had become OK - barely, then... good. more changes... It got better and I got use to it... Then I started to like it. Now it seems pretty damn good.

Now I am using KDE 4.8.4 And when I see a legacy system running KDE 3.5.10 I think to myself... man this thing is pretty primitive... In the end things do get better because if it is not usable... people get irritable and fix it or complain loudly... I still have some quibbles about a few things but overall it is very good once I have it set up as I like it.

I like Linus... He tells you his truth without reservation. Met him a while back.

Even so, the world waits for no one... Linux is the future, KDE is very important.

Use what you like... That is what Linux is all about and it does not break easily.

End of Windows ? At long last, just not all at once.

The intelligent readers of this forum are not likely to go all at once... away from Microsoft products, but it is inevitable. People know I have been an ardent user of Linux for 15 years. I have never had a need for anything Windows, a GUI yes, just not Microsoft’s concepts of the world. It is safe to saythe Linux Kernel won in the end.

Apple is struggling with the end game of suing everyone now. Because it lost mainly due to the inability to cover the entirety of the market and being closed source with heavy licensing. One can not rule the world. The Linux kernel won because it is adaptable to many needs and is available with but few obvious restrictions of its use.

For those who are just lost with what Linux is:

Android, Google, Chrome and Chromium, 95%-Plus all Supercomputers, Most devices used in the world requiring an operating system... like engine management systems... all the way down to your pocket widgets. And least we forget to mention it... Apple is running a variant of Unix on its "devices". that leaves only a very small world running Microsoft products now. They are still the majority of PC's it true but given time as the world moves on... Microsoft will not be there in reality of need... just in the reality of the leaching the pay offs due to threats and unjust legal maneuvers, as usual these days. In point of fact the presence of Microsoft will most likely be noticed in the cost of Android devices to its users but not their function. Windows 8 will be as expected a fail... Let me put it to you like this. If Microsoft was responsible for the function of Android ( justification of the lawsuits over patents ), it would be reflected in the function of Microsoft’s devices in Mobile but it of course it is not there, is it.

The Computer you own

They can have my hard drive when they pull it from my cold dead fingers.

Use Linux... Icedove the secure version of Thunderbird ( or something else ) will be around for some time... so will Thunderbird, hopefully.

Yes, Mobile is here, now... it will not go away, that’s fine.

The desktop may fade into the hands of those who can use it, those who understand that the web is fragile and ephemeral. However, those who may wish to Kill desktop computing and put it into the cloud completely can literally call up these words... Give me liberty or give me death, just expect a fight.

Its not that I am riled up about a single project but the trend to abandon desktop computing is getting more traction than is justly deserved. have you actually tried to use a mobile device... as a computer, without the frustration of no "keyboard" or "mouse" a touchscreen is a waste of time when it gets serious.

Teach Apple a lesson

Especially a more advanced version of Android being available in the Samsung.

Kick Apple in the balls by buying the new Samsung. I will consider it.

Maybe they will listen to the sounds of someone's cash register in the competing camp. Patent wars backfire and are a piss-ant waste instead of investing in good products. Steve Jobs wanted Apple to waste its last dollar fighting...um "destroying' Android. Fine, You know the old saying sow the wind. Reap the whirlwind.

speculation in lay terms

I believe that when the dust settles on this, Google will at worst be brow beaten by the courts slightly and told to be more careful and they would have spent a lot of money to lawyers to settle the issue once and for all forever over a non question raised by bad boy Oracle.

Oracle on the other hand will have embarrassed itself and fubared the already fubared reputation they already have with the "needed Open Source community". Not only that but having lost the case, being so roundly trounced and made to look more foolish than they did in even attempting this nonsense... API copyrights. they will likely be forked out of any loop with future developments coming down the road. Would you trust a backstabbing raving madman claiming to be an Oracle of omniscience.

They spent a fortune only to settle once and for all an issue best left alone... They were forewarned it might not be in their best interests and did it anyway... Greed pure greed and now everybody knows what their game plan is. In a way :-) Larry got it right some years ago, Linux is unbreakable.

H.R.3523, Fascism lives here.

Piracy of films may be something of a problem that needs some kind of solution but this is not it. Lets just set the pathetic MPAA aside for a minute and look at the people behind this proposed Law.

It indicates the level of fear that lawmakers have of freedom itself.

It also is an indication of the low level of education that now runs rampant throughout America. The erosion of higher education is apparent when politicians who usually represent the lowest common denominator in the general population talk of overt fascist policy as though it were some ideal to be espoused as a virtue and nobody laughs at them. They embolden themselves and the population as a whole suffers more, without a clue as to the inevitability of its consequences that leads to the end of all freedoms. At one time intelligent people crafted the Bill of Rights and thought that it would be set in stone. Unfortunately it was never exported to the world and even more unfortunate was the complete failure of the centers of education to take it seriously enough that people would assume it was the actual core of what America was to be about. It take a Highly Educated population to run a technological "democracy" and obviously, were we are, is not it. This is just one more reason that seems to indicate that vigilance to the cause of Freedom, once a sacred concept.... is slipping into some strange new form of a dark age of unenlightened political will towards actual Fascist politics, to the ruin of all.

This bill is an indicator of what that looks like, should it take root as Law.

Give Microsoft plenty of rope... err ribbon

Lets see this played out and lets see the market decide what their fate will be.

I think they are getting hints now that this is not how to ram a product down the throats of their customers but... Microsoft is just what it is, belligerent.

Even resentful that anybody would question their almighty power to shape the world.

At long last I definitely hear the unmistakable sound of an iceberg striking the side of the Microsoft ships hull, ripping a long self inflicted gash five chambers past repair while they steam full ahead into oblivion. The market sea is a force of nature whose presence and pressure should never be disregarded. Just remember, Microsoft did this to themselves by simply dismissing their customers as mere cattle to be driven to the whims of their presumed office overlords. Work harder, work harder now... Lets just see how this pans out.

open hostility towards Linux = no intrest

We have a first rate use of Blu-ray anyway so it is academic but I would say that the open hostility towards Linux, especially by LoveFilm, precludes our interest in their existence.

We are not hostile but it is very important to body-slam the attitude.

We have netflix but our use is by mail which has always been fine but if Netflix seemed as hostile to Linux, we would dump them pronto on principle alone. Severe? Perhaps... we don't actually need anything like these services but the point *needs* to be made.

4% of the market is not trivial... its money that could be theirs. Anyway that's my little rant... No Linux... no interest in what you offering.

Linux evolves, nothing is actually static

Linux evolves

As a user of Linux since 1996 I have seen a lot of changes. Most in time seemed appropriate. I can't say that at the time of them being brought forward to my use I was very happy about them, and I do understand how most people feel comfortable with what is instead of what will be.

I use aptosid Linux. A rolling release... and all things change in time.

What people want is some stability of continuity, not radical revamping with out getting use to the change first.... that is why the grumbling users get mad.

Its the unpredictable change that’s upsetting. but when you look at any technology, any human activity and any history... nothing has ever been static.

Embrace the future, why not, you really do not have a choice if you wish to be were the future is... Linux is reactive to change that is why it survives.

Linux is supremely adaptive. But also understand the past, it is how you know were you are

AMD sees an opertunity

If AMD generates some kind of cross usability between X86 architecture and that which android specific architecture requires or utilizes then as the PC begins its decent into the past... AMD has perhaps a foot in the door or more... Linux and + android on x86 platforms might well prove formidable.

Use your imagination, Personally i have no use for a tablet as I have a AMD based Linux workstation in X86 - 64... but I find some of the "apps" in android interesting. We can just add them to the already 30,000 applications available in Linux

Just Imagine... Its not so hard to do...

And I know that I am a Linux junkie... but in spite of all of the gnashing of teeth and effort on the Microsoft camp. It is too late. The PC is in decline.

Microsoft is sucking as much royalties from Android via litigation as the can now before the courts come crashing down on them. but it is too late.

Don't ask me how I know but this is what I believe. Microsoft spends all of its money on trying to stop Android / Linux and nowhere near enough on decent R&D that yields any real quality. Late to market, poor actual quality, few features of difference. and they have made a lot of genuine corporate enemy’s who will attack at the first sign of weakness.

In two years or less the fade will be obvious to even their most ardent of supporters. I won't be cheering the sinking... Although they deserve it.

It will leave a lot of people, the majority in fact with hopelessly few actual computer skills to adapt to a very different computing landscape.

Did I say it is the beginning of the end for the common PC... yes perhaps the Linux PC as well... Oh I almost forgot android is a somewhat young variation of the future Linux rising. And it is early to its future market.

Android is an invention

@ David Kelly Are you serious?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13409993

Based on Linux Android is almost pure innovation...

It is semi open because it represents a substantial amount of threat to the status of Microsoft mobile and those who have a stake in Android are trying to both protect what they have invested in. Much to the anger of the real open source world. That is an indication of just how important Android is becoming. Microsoft is the one who is sucking on the big tit of Android because they have no answer with their "competition by achievement"... Oh sorry they don't have an answer, except instilling fear via gangster tactics.

That is why Microsoft has a whopping 7-17% of the market (depending on who you wish to believe). likely less.

LibreOffice is a tremendous product

We have a great deal of experience with it since we dumped Microsoft's products 15 years ago. used Star Office and it was pretty rough but we stuck it out and when Open Office started out we switched. We became members of the now defunct ODF. The fork of OO.o to libreOffice was the best thing to happen to it. Currently we are running LibreOffice 3.4.3 - OOO340m1 (Build:302) in aptosid 64bit Linux with the KDE GUI. We never did like Oracle or its attempt to dominate the world. So for us its LibreOffice all the way. It helps to actually learn something about a product before panning it. Like all software... it will be strange and difficult if you are use to something different.

No surprise there... People who are use to MS office are going to find it alien. but all I am saying from using it for a long time... it actually has legs and we think it is going to win in the end... it is a world standard now..

Pure mobisoft behaviorism

Nice little handset you got there... too bad if something were to happen to it.

Oh you want to use something closely related to Linux. It does not matter we have nothing to do with your Android/Linux... but if you don't want our goons... er, jackboots... er, enforcers to work you over we suggest you pay up. We are top dog and you had better bow down to our overwhelming power. And you thought we were just going to go away quietly... Steve-o has a bat pounding on the chair over there... and he is not happy with you moving in on our planet.

A rolling release is my reality (problem is real)

I use aptosid Linux based on Debian sid (unstable due to advanced and experimental state)

I go through many perpetual upgrades continually as that is the nature of an experimental development model - We are the future of your next Linux

that includes the boot loader and the kernel and all of the thousands of applications. If this thing (UEFI) becomes some form of reality what of that.

I smell the scent of a plan here... killing the development of future software by those whose interest lies in the status of what is. A blockade of development. Linux is mobile and changes to fill the needs of society by responding to new hardware with functionality... that is why it is a fast cycle and that explains the hundreds of distro's. Needs vary.... UEFI is a poison pill to that, so it seems to me.

Microsoft does not know how to be "good"

It is the dream of Microsoft to slow down, incapacitate, hobble, cripple, disallow and prevent anything that makes it seem as though there is a choice - to not use their Operating System.

Especially if the competing Linux is somehow better.

Microsoft is not competitive in mobile so it latches on to piggybacking the cost to produce mobile devices by suing the hardware manufacturers that use android, thus raising the cost to consumers and slowing down the demise of the PC by cost offset and generate a profit on the existence of android like the parasites they are.

Even as the gradual death of the PC is soon to be here... if they can somehow prevent or make less easy for a newbie to install Linux they win.

No doubt experienced Linux users will find a work around in time... but slowing down the inevitable, Microsoft wrongly believes that they gain time to make more profit. Perhaps long enough to become the complete parasite upon Linux by whatever means available.

Microsoft was never a good neighbor, not to their partners or to their users. Restrictions, restrictions, restrictions... pay me, pay me more, we want it all.

DRM = poision

Digitizing entire libraries then become the property of the those with the means to reproduce them to the viewer.

When you type a document with Microsoft word .doc in the strictest sense it belongs to Microsoft since you used a propriety system to create it... lets put it this way... if the code was not cracked and forced to be open then all the documents created with a word processor is literally owned by the means to read it....

That is just the tip of the iceberg.... way to complex to break it all down here.

However when in a digitized world... if it is not open source with many ways to see and read and hear something.... who owns your works is those who own the mechanism of putting it back into human readability or visibility as the case may be... something to think about.

Faith is not science

I find the argument taking place here interesting. And a little disappointing.

If the Creator of the universe were to have a face, perhaps we could call it life itself. Mysterious Unknowable is an American Native expression.

But that expression of respect for what we don't understand was clever enough, by the expression of its presence... gave us a mind to be used to figure out what truth is... the method of its presence expressed as...

humans call it, is science... it removes the element of faith getting in the way of finding out what truth is.

Real science was an invention of the human mind to try and understand how the real universe works. Clever this Mysterious Unknowable force.

If you find that the answers do not jive with what you want to believe by faith, then perhaps an adjustment to the faith may be called for.

Science is also not absolute in is conclusions so the theory gets modified until it works... that is how science is suppose to work.

Faith allows no such instrument of self correction.... Unless it is faith in the mechanism of science.

When an institution of learning or a government allows incursion into itself with a bias towards unquestioning faith, based only on unvalidated religious documents designed only to control human behavior... then trouble in reality sets in.

Never, ever trust Microsoft. They will bite your backside every time

It is a predatory company. It will devour everything in its path and will corrupt all in its wake.

Microsoft's goal is the death of Open Source or its capture.

The only way to prevent that is to never give this "company" any margin of acceptance.

People always want to assume the best in others, that is natural enough.

However, sometimes the reputation and history of something, is its truth.

Nothing about Microsoft has changed... It is on the ropes now, its market and energy is draining... keep it up with relentless pressure and it is just barely possible that this blight on the face of humanity can be relegated to the dustbin of history.

The metaphor of how this company operates has done its part to bring the US and most of the world to its knees technologically. They don't innovate anything, they destroy innovation in all that they touch. look at how they act. Are they a neighbor you want living next to you. When you hear kind and friendly words from them, look behind the words and know that they have a (figuratively speaking) 10 inch dagger just waiting to plunge into your Company's heart at the first moment of viable option.

Watch Steve, the chair throwing potty mouth and see the truth.

They realize that if they get a toe-hold on Debian and Ubuntu... They win.

Why else are they interested.

Microsoft is the proverbial "One Ring to rule them all"... and it is something that needs to be thrown into the fires of Mt Doom. Microsoft *is* entirely evil.

Point of proof... How many company's have they destroyed with Microsoft being all that is left standing when all is said and done.

Point of proof... Do you or Microsoft own the documents you create with their encrypted code in office products... They do... every time the code changes... you had best pay the piper or you can't read what you wrote.

Not archival, not by a long-shot.

Is that the world you want. Everything digital under their control.

Not a byte left unencrypted. Intellectual Property... from their point of view is a and the mechanism of destruction. They want to tax the universe that they did not create one way or another. Microsoft is All Or... Nothing is left standing without Microsoft as the overlords.

It stops when one is committed to just not using their contaminated code.

It stops when enough people say "No, not this time".

It stops when People see them for what they are, not how we would like them to be. Open your eyes. Is Microsoft what you like to see as the example of good behavior.

If not, take the effort, to use anything but Microsoft for digital anything.

Its OK to let Microsoft make Analog toasters... not much to corrupt there.

But if you see a digital toaster and you can't see the code... you know what they are up to.

Always looking towards the future

As an aptosid user (Debian sid rolling release) i got use to the idea of a machine in perpetual development, as a daily driver.

I use KDE 4.4.5 today. Tomorrow it might be 4.4.6, if you get my drift.

A user interface is not written in stone. At first encounter everything may seem strange if one has never used anything except the same old same old.

But I bet you have not had your latest podly or android phone more than 6 months... that's new too. tomorrow it will be different, get use to it.

Fact is... the desktop is evolving into a hybrid of mobile and workstation.

Most of Linux is geared towards the supercomputer and the desktop struggles for a piece of the action with the developers. The PC itself is dying. These new developments with GNOME and KDE are really the only shot at bringing the desktop PC in to a future that is integrated with the new world of the mobile.

My best advice to users of computers is stop thinking of these things as white goods were all the controls are always were they were and doing the same things as your dads machine did. Embrace the future and feel the acceleration of greater power in computing. Put that old Pentium in the dumpster of the past along with MS Win whatever it was.

Linux Rocks in its many forms from android, to some invisible embedded thing running your automobile, to the latest global powerhouse figuring out Quanto-gravitectic hyper-drive in the 4th dimension. Oh by the way, Linux does desktops on a PC... Aren't we lucky it does.

Icons go down hard and thinking of Linux as a reflection of Windows and the dying Microsoft is like not realizing that in computing terms 1995 was in the last millennium. Computers had better look like and act like today's technology today.

A rolling release such as aptosid is more like tomorrows technology today... I'm quite sure that the fine people at Fedora and Red Hat feel the same way. Even if the mechanism of the distribution is a little old school :)

On one hand technology is today an acceleration of doing things with greater capabilities at lower cost than yesterday.

It also means that people need to take a greater amount of time to think about what they are allowing into their lives today. Your choice to stay in the past or not has ramifications.

You do have a choice about that. you do not have one if you choose not to move into the future though, as the rest of the world will pass you by. And it will if you can't integrate your mindset with the new.

Sorry, but just as Luddite became a word... aren't we all just a little bit like that from time to time. Look at your computer as more than an Office sledge hammer and one will see into it the future itself.

I too look at my Western Electric 202 telephone from 1932 and dreamily consider a past that is no more. But I don't stay there long.

I wish the people at GNOME and its users all the best in getting people to let go of the past and move into a new more sophisticated UI.

I look at my (once) beloved KDE 3.5 and now wonder, just what was I thinking so long ago... two years past. change happens.

What he is really saying

I'm scared of a changing world... were Governments play a less significant role... because people might discover that communication has unified humanity and Nationalism is more destructive than helpful.

Regulation keeps us in power and the people of the world, powerless and controlled.

Of course it really is more complicated than that reduction... but jerks like this just make me mad at their ignorance. Perhaps they aren't ignorant.

Have you noticed the most regulated internet from the government are also the most restricted populations. Let Freedom be Freedom.

Old Debian user

I have been a straight up Debian user for years. Met Mark Shuttleworth a while back and was fairly impressed with what he is attempting to do.

Make a McLinux for everybody. I can't complain too much as I don't use it so it's particulars are somewhat removed from my experience as I am now an aptosid user ( another Debian, based on sid ). Linux can be very stable... in the extreme like an enterprise system its so stable its dead (no change to anything.. all bugs removed)

At the other end there is aptosid ( a rolling release were everyday is a new day and change is the only constant ) that is what I use.

And then in between is the island of Ubuntu. and it is an Island. unto itself.

Based loosely on Debian.... but it is just barely so. Kind of like closed course were spec cars race. you can tune them different ways, some but it is still a spec car.

There are Hundreds of distros out there... Ubuntu is but just one very noticeable flavor. It has its fans and it is a good thing to be so popular as a Linux, it helps bring in new people, but keep in mind it is just a flavor with its particular look and feel and its own aspects of stability.

I am sticking to aptosid as it's config and behavior has more to do with my capabilities rather than a canned version does.

Watching the preditory by nature, Watch Microsoft

Microsoft by most knowledgeable accounts is a predatory company. When it can't "win" with authentic innovation ( What authentic aspect of x window system did they actually invent )

Then they win by the espousing the worst example of patentable concepts.

An idea expressed as mathematics and logic initiated by others and then stolen into some perversion of law corrupted by modern intent... instead of what the law was created to do so many years ago. Software patents in the modern sense is a perversion of patent law. They and everyone else know it.

Lawyers feed on this perversion to the detriment of the entire world.

Who but a few of the greediest scum of the earth benefit from this.

What a waste of human effort, tens perhaps hundreds of millions of (name your money) blown completely into nothingness... its not the money that matters its the pure waste of human effort trying to fight this official injustice plague of the modern world..

html5 and browsers

I have a chance to see some of the latest 64bit browser technology using an unstable (advanced and very changing Linux system) aptosid. And my browser of the moment is Firefox 4.2a1-04-13-2011-x86-64 nightly build installed last night. I am using it right now.

Something in an environment like that... needs to be stable as a reference and a standard... html5 seems to be it now.

Videos on vimeo, youtube, BBC and elsewhere all seem to be working well,

Using the new standards... vimeo was not working with Firefox 3.6.18 and told me to get with a "modern" browser. Very funny since they seem to be pushing the envelope the most. Very fine high res videos with taste. And at high frame rates. Sorry, I can't speak to the use of IE whatever... but the current and next standards of the internet seem to work just fine with or without the presence of Microsoft.

I hope that Microsoft finally sees the truth of it all and does not try to gum up the internet with more gubber code of their own creation.

Linux for utility computing (clouds)

It is not surprising that Microsoft is involved at some level in this, However I hope that it is well understood that their reputation as a extend, embrace and extinguish organization is well understood and watched relentlessly by those who care about the future of standards that are truly open.

Microsoft's contamination of the ISO is well known within the open source community. They will use whatever means available to bias the direction of development towards a proprietary system that excludes everybody that is not under their control. Its their history.

Take a look at what fools they made of the ISO for the most recent evidence of this tactic. It is what they do, it is their nature.